Ono, There Goes Tokyo! Go, go, Warriors!

[raybomb]

This thread is for the discussion of the article "Ono, There Goes Tokyo! Go, go, Warriors!" by Riki Hayashi. You can find it here - http://Magic.TCGplayer.com/db/article.asp?id=7959

Discuss!

[midi2304]

This article was good.

That is all.

[Shotgunlaw]

Opps. Pick the new guy to write articles and then he goes and bogarts your topic!

I really really like this deck. Normally, I would feel that it lacks some kind of gas, but "Protection from Black" is just so insane on the colossus.

In thinking about the mirror where your CC could be staring across from a Vanquisher or CC, what are the thoughts about boarded Elvish Champions? Admittedly, you are going to want to use it as an immediate finisher and it would dilute warriors to get him in there.

[RoninX]

Sure, pick on me ;) I gave you fair warning about the Druids though :D

The end of the first paragraph after your standard warrior deck is "The Japanese are notorious for using GPTs as testing grounds for new ideas, although this has to be considered a successful test for" ... for the deck? for experimental medications? for caffeine coated card sleeves? I must know!

[snowden]

Keldon Marauders is a warrior, just so we're all aware.

Also, the mono-green list is deceptively good. We had a City Champs box tourney over the weekend, and both mono-green lists (mostly the same, but with some differences) top 4'd. Chameleon Colossus was/is sick, and caused my BR control deck some fits (though I still won the tourney, natch).

[Rakavolver]

I would expect BR to kill G, as G is critters and no 2 colors hate critters like R and B, with all due respect to the white Damnation.

But in any event, congrats, I always root for Rakdos.

[RoninX]

I would expect BR to kill G, as G is critters and no 2 colors hate critters like R and B, with all due respect to the white Damnation.

But red has a tough time dealing with creatures with thoughness >4 and pro-black, well, protects from black. If you don't find damnations the CC can eat up RB... I'm guessing Blake found his damnations though :) or a stuffy doll.

[trigunshin]

As far as needing damnation to deal with CC, that's a fairly extreme idea. Black currently has 2 edicts in std (sure, the goblin one is kind of lame against CC...), nevermind Condemn and O Ring in white (as well as white's many, many other options and pacifism variants). Now that the aggro base has been set, its not too hard to make control decks that target them efficiently; it would seem that with CC as popular as it is, the white control spells may see a resurgence. CC is very good, but its a far cry from invincible; people are far too used to relying on shriekmaw and terror variants.

What I personally find interesting is that a revamp of older Mesa decks may prove to be good against the recent aggro builds; although the blue portion of the decks may not be as strong due to weaker/slower counters, they can be built to hate creatures effectively. In a world of spot removal and fatties without trample (paragon notwithstanding), Mesa makes for a strong stabilizer and finisher.

[sengirautocrat]

I have been messing around with a r/g warrior build for block and its pretty ridic. i play the bannerets and they make up for the lack of a good mana elf as far as acceleration goes.

the list is something like

4x Flamekin Harbinger
4x Brightearth Banneret
1x Taurian Mauler
2x Nova Chaser
4x Imperious Perfect
4x Wren's Run Vanquisher
4x Bramblewood Paragon
2x Chameleon Collosus

3x Cream of the Crop
4x Obsidian Battle-Axe
4x Lash out
2x Gilt-Leaf Ambush

11 Mountains
12 Forests
1 Mutavault

I would run more CC's and maybe another vault if i had em, but other than that as far as maindeck goes i am very happy with this deck. its been beating other block decks turn 5 or 6 pretty handily.

[Rakavolver]

But red has a tough time dealing with creatures with thoughness >4 and pro-black, well, protects from black. If you don't find damnations the CC can eat up RB... I'm guessing Blake found his damnations though :) or a stuffy doll.

Which is why I'm currently long on, and have been long on for months, on BW Control, because you can then play more than 4 Damnations (you can play the white one) and more than four Wraths of Gods (you can play the black one).

Oops, I said "long on," a stock market term. My bad, referring to a game that the same skills that make you a good player or deck designer can actually MAKE YOU MONEY!!!!

So in conclusion, I think one of the reasons you folks have forgotten BW Control is that you're "high" on the new Morningtide goodness that is Elf Warriors, Rogues, and mono-Green. There are so few people playing Control. That didn't stop Blake le snowden, did it? Look who won.

And in further conclusion, check out www.bloomberg.com. As in Magic, you hold a "deck" except in Stocks it's called a "Portfolio." You hold 30. Like the metagame, you don't KNOW which decks you will face, so you have to be ready for them all. In Stocks, you know not where the "market" will swing ... same difference. Here are my 30 "cards," oops I meant "Stocks" i.e. companies to get you started. There are other stocks called "A Watch List," and thank God you can have more than 15. The sky's the limit.

Insert these "symbols" in the upper left corner at www.bloomberg.com where is says "Enter Symbol", and read all about them, especially the 1-yr and 5-yr charts, and news, and quotes, and learn how to play that which will enable you to have a good life ... other than buying a playset of Goyfs for $200 ...

BA CAT COP CVS DE FCX GE GLW GOOG HAS IAU IGT IMA LMT MAT MCD MO MRO NLY PEP PG RIG SE SHLD SY TXN UNP WHR XOM XTO

[Risky]

Sure, pick on me ;) I gave you fair warning about the Druids though :D

The end of the first paragraph after your standard warrior deck is "The Japanese are notorious for using GPTs as testing grounds for new ideas, although this has to be considered a successful test for" ... for the deck? for experimental medications? for caffeine coated card sleeves? I must know!

Right. That whole sentence was supposed to get nixed. I got a new laptop for the GP coverage duty and I'm afraid that I'm still very bad with drag and click functions on my touch pad. For some reason I have to highlight the section, then click on it again before I can move it or delete it. I still haven't gotten accustomed to that second click. Of course, I should have caught this one later, by I like to imagine myself completing my unfinished thoughts. Ah, the power of imagination. I think my original thought was that it was a good test for the two players, then moved their names somewhere else.

Edicts aren't very effective against this deck because it tends to have extra dorks lying around, either of the mana-elf variety, or your middle of the road Paragons and Perfects. If you're going to sweep the weenies away in order to edict the CC, then why not just Damnation. Plus, with counters from Paragon, sweeping the leg isn't always viable.

CC is not invincible, but nullifying a certain class of normal answers can buy you a few turns, and when you use those turns to smash with something this big, you win.

[RoninX]

Ah, the power of imagination. I think my original thought was that it was a good test for the two players, then moved their names somewhere else.

Thats actually pretty interesting. Would you mind if I can ask you to elaborate on that? Do you mean that format was varied enough (or focused enough) to provide a good gaunlet for this deck and these players? Maybe I'm just obsessing though...


Edicts aren't very effective against this deck because it tends to have extra dorks lying around, either of the mana-elf variety, or your middle of the road Paragons and Perfects. If you're going to sweep the weenies away in order to edict the CC, then why not just Damnation. Plus, with counters from Paragon, sweeping the leg isn't always viable.


Yup. Green decks tend to relatively very edict resistant, which is why we don't see alot of edict in competitive play at the moment.

[Ghostfoo]

And in further conclusion, check out www.bloomberg.com (http://www.bloomberg.com). As in Magic, you hold a "deck" except in Stocks it's called a "Portfolio." You hold 30. Like the metagame, you don't KNOW which decks you will face, so you have to be ready for them all. In Stocks, you know not where the "market" will swing ... same difference. Here are my 30 "cards," oops I meant "Stocks" i.e. companies to get you started. There are other stocks called "A Watch List," and thank God you can have more than 15. The sky's the limit.

Insert these "symbols" in the upper left corner at www.bloomberg.com (http://www.bloomberg.com) where is says "Enter Symbol", and read all about them, especially the 1-yr and 5-yr charts, and news, and quotes, and learn how to play that which will enable you to have a good life ... other than buying a playset of Goyfs for $200 ...

BA CAT COP CVS DE FCX GE GLW GOOG HAS IAU IGT IMA LMT MAT MCD MO MRO NLY PEP PG RIG SE SHLD SY TXN UNP WHR XOM XTO


How many times in the past week have you tried to get us investing in the stock market? I agree that investing is very important to ones longterm life achievments, more so than a set of goyfs, but to keep bringing it up in a magic forum seems a little off subject.

BTW, I choose Vanguard's mutual funds over independent investing. (my off subject / on subject post now?)

Also, good tip on your last stock post about LCD T.V. screens.

[Risky]

Thats actually pretty interesting. Would you mind if I can ask you to elaborate on that? Do you mean that format was varied enough (or focused enough) to provide a good gaunlet for this deck and these players? Maybe I'm just obsessing though...

Quite all right. Strangely, it is a very interesting topic for such a little blurb, and one of the reasons I cut it was because I didn't want to get into it, at least not without a little more research.

I may try to get an article's worth out of the topic in the future, especially after interviewing a few Japanese pros about the topic. For now, I can tell you that I simply meant that making a Top 8, even at a GPT, has to be considered somewhat of a success. It's certainly better than an 0-2 drop. However, the real subtext of the truncated point was that the Japanese pros are willing to play in GPTs just for the live testing. I mentioned this with Shuuhei Nakamura before in my GP Daytona report, and when scouring some past event coverage for research, I came across (not quite sure, but I believe) Kuroda test-driving several different decks in successive GPTs the night before a main event.

I don't want to speak for an entire nation, but I will when I say that it is very rare for American pros to do this because they feel that the primary value of the GPTs are the byes, which they already have. Recently, the only instance I've heard of American pros running GPTs was not so much for practice, but to "run interference" for their friends.

See what happens when you ask a question.

And, by the way, Robin, you can drink my milkshake any day, unless we are talking about actual milkshakes (or oil for some reason).

[StunLocke]

How do you stop a 6/5 attack on turn 3?

Easy. Play a 0/5 on turn 2. Even on the draw, that means that the Colossus won't be attacking on turn 3, having to wait until turn 4 when you can activate the doubling power.

RB won't deal with Colossus best. White will. Oblivion Ring, Temporal Extortion and Wrath of God all stop the Colossus. Oblivion Ring/Temp Extortion all fit easily into the Doran theme while getting around pro-Black.

Colossus is a great card. You can put him in any Green deck and have him work well. But he isn't game defining. Doran, the turn 2 5/5 who just got Murmuring Bosk, is.

[biofeedback1]

That's pretty sexy. How sexy, I'm not quite sure, because the general sexiness of things tends to get rather mixed up when you talk about Magic. We all know those players who collect page after page of Serra Angels.




Special mention to the man who defines "SEXY" in the game of magic.

That colour commentator with the triple first name (In english), and a little light in his dark tight pants.

[biofeedback1]

Sorry to add an add on,

But i wanted to praise the power of the soils. They have always been great. I have been playing them in my "manequin" build for some time, and stopping the "BIG" white angel in the sky with my lil'old mul, is sweet.

[dead2me82]

uhm, StunLocke, I don't know if anyone told you, but CColossus has "protection from black", which means that Doran can't block it.

[Risky]

This article was good.

That is all.

Thanks, Dave. That's all you need to say.

Opps. Pick the new guy to write articles and then he goes and bogarts your topic!

I really really like this deck. Normally, I would feel that it lacks some kind of gas, but "Protection from Black" is just so insane on the colossus.

In thinking about the mirror where your CC could be staring across from a Vanquisher or CC, what are the thoughts about boarded Elvish Champions? Admittedly, you are going to want to use it as an immediate finisher and it would dilute warriors to get him in there.

Elvish Champion is a dangerous card to play because going by MTGO PE results, Elves are the rage of Standard, and the success of this offshoot will only boost their popularity. Playing the Champion game in can be a dangerous thing because of the symmetrical effect. I'm not ruling it out, but I would recommend a lot of mirror testing because you really need to get a good feel for the ebb and flow of when the right time to go for it is.

Mirri, Cat Warrior strikes me as a safer way to take advantage of forestwalk, and she's a Warrior!

I have been messing around with a r/g warrior build for block and its pretty ridic. i play the bannerets and they make up for the lack of a good mana elf as far as acceleration goes.

I would run more CC's and maybe another vault if i had em, but other than that as far as maindeck goes i am very happy with this deck. its been beating other block decks turn 5 or 6 pretty handily.

I don't think there's any doubt that RG is the way to go in Block with the absence of mana-Elves. I like your take with the Elementals. Hasted Nova Chaser. Yikes.

[StunLocke]

uhm, StunLocke, I don't know if anyone told you, but CColossus has "protection from black", which means that Doran can't block it.
Haha, wow I look dumb :P

Ya, I overlooked the black mana. Still, the white-beats-CC thing still holds :P

[jeanbathez]

Article was good and interesting. Go on with stuff like that !!!

[biofeedback1]

I too like the cat. i always liked the cat. none of my pals liked it, they just shugged it off, but me, i liked it. it shuts down any forrests. And armed with the equip of doom, it's just harasey(i don't know the proper orthograph, oops!). After much analysis, i say the deck in green is the most productive. You splash, and then you wait, tic..toc..., things happen, you are out of the game. Go proactive, and as Risky stated, the colossus is one bad mother ****er!

[RoninX]

the colossus is one bad mother ****er!

Shut'cho mouth!


I'm just talkin' about colossus

[midi2304]

Damn right

[Rakavolver]

Yes, pls watch ur language. Since Wizards is going Tribal/linear to re-capture the market it lost to Yu-Gi-Oh, and apparently WoW as well, we have more 8-12 yr-olds here than usual.

[mydragonlove]

Riki,
Great article man, not only did you show the multiple builds of the deck but you gave all the locals here in the PA, DE, maryland and jersey areas the deck that currently sweeps a lot of the major archetypes out right now...BRILLIANT!

Anyway, as for some of the color splashes, you should talk to ruud warmenhoven and see what the dutch are playing as far as this deck goes. The GB list you had with a couple changes is def. the way to go. Not only does profane command and thoughtseize steal games for you, but it gives you resilence to the multiple sweeper draws that this deck can sometimes have problems with. Wren's run packmaster is an all together weak card to me, and bramble wood paragon seems marginal sometimes. I have seen a lot of deck combating this deck with the strategy of, "take out their axe and their a mediocre aggro deck" and that seems to be the way to attack this deck. By adding profane command and thoughtseize you can utterly steal their defense to the axe or ignore the fact that you don't have axe, and give your guys fear and swing on through. Did i mention profane command destroys the mirror and isn't symmetrical with elves like the elvish champion route is? I lost games with he mono green version to bad decks like the old gb elves lists because all his guys had forestwalk and i couldn't kill him in time. I think your right...mirri is a better solution with the mono green version, but don't be surprised if you guys see a whole lot more GB warrior/elf builds popping up because of the fact that profane command dominates the mirror, gives you better solutions to mass removal and single target removal, and trades in aggro match ups. It just does everything you want, thoughtseize punishes the slower control decks by casting it the turn before they want to wrath.

In short, test the GB version some more. Red isn't nearly worth it as it just gives you better warriors but doesn't solve the decks problems against the field. Black is the solution color. profane commanding your WoG/Damn'd colossus is just...back breaking...Also look at the SB options of black as well, INSANE. 1 sided wrath of god in aggro matches, riftsweeper is really strong right now, alys and cloudthresher, and extirpate...you couldn't ask for better SB options...

I'll be on the forums but i'm interested to see how else the japanese adapt the GB builds and the mono green builds...i also heard something about a GW reveillark list that nakamura and co were heralding.

[biofeedback1]

Sorry, i learnt my english watching Bladerunner, Chuck Norris, Eddy Murphy.....

[Risky]

Riki,
Great article man, not only did you show the multiple builds of the deck but you gave all the locals here in the PA, DE, maryland and jersey areas the deck that currently sweeps a lot of the major archetypes out right now...BRILLIANT!

Next thing you're going to tell me is that I was responsible for Barack Obama's sweep of the "Potomac Primaries."

I do like your thoughts about the black splash. The more I see Profane Command, the more I like it. And you bring up an interesting point about attacking the Axe. Why don't these Elf decks have more V-Shamans for this purpose? Maybe they're on their way.

[tony28]

Opps. Pick the new guy to write articles and then he goes and bogarts your topic!

I really really like this deck. Normally, I would feel that it lacks some kind of gas, but "Protection from Black" is just so insane on the colossus.

In thinking about the mirror where your CC could be staring across from a Vanquisher or CC, what are the thoughts about boarded Elvish Champions? Admittedly, you are going to want to use it as an immediate finisher and it would dilute warriors to get him in there.

Hmm.. I'm not sure how the deck runs out of gas. Imho the longer the game progresses the more ONO looks to dominate the board. It has so many threats in there. Packmaster and Imperious Perfect keep pumping creatures out, Bramblewood is a Glorious Anthem with legs, the Battle-Axe just makes them enormous and keeps the opponent on their toes and there's CC. They've also got friggin overrun. Overrun! The real question is how many removal spells are you packing? Because if you don't get rid of Packmaster, Imperious or CC when they hit; GG.
I think Damnation and WoG are going to be MB a lot more now if this deck hits it off.... and Disenchant.... and O-Ring. I just don't see how Doran could trade blows with it, they eventually end up with so many token blockers and all their own creatures have trample.

But red has a tough time dealing with creatures with thoughness >4 and pro-black, well, protects from black. If you don't find damnations the CC can eat up RB... I'm guessing Blake found his damnations though :) or a stuffy doll.

What about Skred? BR control decks have skred, right? I'd say that's a pretty solid spot removal.

EDIT:

uhm, StunLocke, I don't know if anyone told you, but CColossus has "protection from black", which means that Doran can't block it.

**HEAD EXPLODE**

[bigmanlouie]

So I tried out the GB Warrior build at FNM last night (minus the thoughtseizes, having traded them for crushers and a goyf). Two lessons learned. First, NEVER play GB aggro w/o thoughtseize. 2nd, GR warriors are amazing! The build I played last week was GR, and it fits the warrior style a little better, IMO.
My reasoning is this. With GR Warriors, you can set up for the turn five win most of the time, and you ensure that you never face a completely dead draw (except lands, obviously, but if you have the crusher, even those aren't a huge problem). As a deck built around trample and haste suggests, speed beats combo here.